Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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The Heaviest Drop of Blood: Black Exceptionalism Among Multiracials

2022-03-11

The Heaviest Drop of Blood: Black Exceptionalism Among Multiracials

Political Psychology
First published 2022-03-04
DOI: 10.1111/pops.12806

Gregory John Leslie, Ph.D. Candidate
University of California, Los Angeles

David O. Sears, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Political Science
University of California, Los Angeles

We leverage the emerging multiracial population to reexamine prominent theories of the American color line. A Black exceptionalism hypothesis suggests that Black heritage will be more restrictive of biracials’ social and political assimilation prospects than Asian or Latino heritage. Black exceptionalism better explains biracials’ sorting into the racial hierarchy than does classic assimilation theory or a people-of-color hypothesis. In the American Community Survey, Black heritage dominates subjective racial self-identification among biracial adults and identity assignments to children of interracial marriages. In the 2015 Pew Survey of Multiracials, Black-White biracials’ social identity, social networks, perceptions and experiences of discrimination, and political attitudes relevant to race resemble those of monoracial Blacks, whereas Latino-Whites and Asian-Whites are more similar to monoracial Whites than to their minority-group counterparts. Results suggest that even in a more racially mixed future, Black Americans will continue to be uniquely situated behind a most impermeable color line.

Read or purchase the article here.
She’s Biracial, but She’s Still Black: Reflections from Monoracial African American Parents Raising Biracial Children

2022-03-11
She’s Biracial, but She’s Still Black: Reflections from Monoracial African American Parents Raising Biracial Children

Journal of Child and Family Studies
Volume 31, Issue 3 (March 2022) (Special Issue on Multiracial Families)
Published online 2022-02-22
pages 675–684
DOI: 10.1007/s10826-022-02263-8

Yolanda T. Mitchell, Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Science
University of North Texas, Denton, Texas

In this commentary, a scholar of Black families blends observations that emanate from her research with those arising within personal experiences. Applying a multicrit lens, she seeks to reflect on the experiences of monoracial parents in joint biological stepfamilies, raising biracial children. Her work draws upon heuristic analysis of African American parents raising biracial children in concert with monoracial Black children. Multicrit tenets of experiential knowledge, challenge to dominant ideology, racism, monoracism, and colorism, a monoracial paradigm of race, and intersections of multiple racial identities are applied to contextual environmental factors of socialization including racial profiling, parents’ perception of their mixed-race child’s personality and skin tone, and parental orientations toward mixed-race versus monoracial children. This study highlights relevant aspects in the development of mixed-race children including how they are perceived and how they encounter the world around them in an effort to help monoracial parents limit racial polarization and increase an understanding of multiple intersectional identities.

Highlights
- Monoracial Black parents engage racial socialization as a protective factor in the development of their children.
- Racial identity development is a central component of healthy identity development in biracial children.
- Biracial identity development is influenced by contextual environmental factors such as family structure and parent racial socialization practices of monoracial parents.
- Multicrit highlights the unique needs of multiracial individuals regarding experiences of race-ethnicity in the United States.
- Biracial identity development techniques can be used to reduce racial polarization and inform a sense of shared racial identity.
Read the entire article here.
Now, when I look at the words “Pick One” with a pen in my hand, I feel like the Other. I feel alienated and ostracized, thrust into a dilemma that I have no solution for.

2022-03-11

Ever since I started living in the U.S., I’ve felt a constant underlying pressure to choose a side. To be white or to be Black. On every form I’ve ever filled out in Canada, I’ve always had the chance to pick All That Apply — Black, White, etc., when asked about my race. On the first form I filled out for my student visa application, they asked me to Pick One — Black, White, or Other. Though I didn’t give it much thought at the time, the very use of the word “Other” demonstrates how the multiracial experience is far more marginalized in the United States than in Canada. Now, when I look at the words “Pick One” with a pen in my hand, I feel like the Other. I feel alienated and ostracized, thrust into a dilemma that I have no solution for.

Zach Bayfield, “A Canadian’s Perspective On The American Multiracial Experience,” The Oberlin Review, March 4, 2022. https://oberlinreview.org/26143/opinions/a-canadians-perspective-on-the-american-multiracial-experience/.
Your Attention Please: Initiative 29 – Tao Leigh Goffe • Hulu

2022-03-11

Your Attention Please: Initiative 29 – Tao Leigh Goffe • Hulu

Hulu
2021-05-29

Tao Leigh Goffe, Assistant Professor of Literary Theory and Cultural History
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

Journey through time with professor and DJ Tao Leigh Goffe as she uncovers her story at the intersection of Black and Chinese culture in this month’s #Initiative29 episode.
A Canadian’s Perspective On The American Multiracial Experience

2022-03-11

A Canadian’s Perspective On The American Multiracial Experience

The Oberlin Review
Oberlin, Ohio
2022-03-04

Zach Bayfield

Before coming to Oberlin [College], my racial identity was something I rarely reflected on. My mother is a fifth-generation Canadian with entirely European ancestry. My father was born in Jamaica to an English father and a Jamaican mother. The Afro-Caribbean side of my ancestry was discussed comfortably in my family, and I felt no pressure to identify with one race over the other. Regardless of who I surrounded myself with or what activities I was engaging in, I felt like my identity was understood.

When I first came to Oberlin, my identity suddenly became more contentious. I remember my freshman year, I was eating lunch in Stevenson Dining Hall when one of my Black teammates asked me, “What are you?” I explained my genealogy in an abbreviated version of the previous paragraph, and his response was, “So you’re Black, right?” I was confused and taken aback by this statement. How could I identify as Black when I’ve never experienced racism directly? Why do I have to identify as a particular race? Why can’t I just be me?…

Read the entire article here.
“Mom, You Don’t Get It”: A Critical Examination of Multiracial Emerging Adults’ Perceptions of Parental Support

2022-03-11

“Mom, You Don’t Get It”: A Critical Examination of Multiracial Emerging Adults’ Perceptions of Parental Support

Emerging Adulthood
Volume: 9 Issue: 4
pages 305-319
Article first published online: 2020-03-25; Issue published: 2021-08-01
DOI: 10.1177/2167696820914091

Annabelle L. Atkin, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar
T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics
Arizona State University

Kelly F. Jackson, Associate Professor of Social Work
Arizona State University

Multiracial families are becoming increasingly common in the United States, yet there is a dearth of research examining how parents of Multiracial youth provide support for navigating challenges associated with being mixed race in a monocentric society. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the parental support strategies that Multiracial emerging adults perceived to be helpful in their own development. Twenty Multiracial emerging adults (50% female, mean age = 20.55) with diverse Multiracial heritages were interviewed about conversations they had with their parents regarding their racial experiences throughout their childhood. Critical supplementary analysis using constructivist grounded theory identified three themes of parental support (i.e., connection support, discrimination support, and Multiracial identity expression support) and informed a conceptual model demonstrating relationships between environmental context, parent characteristics, family dynamics, risks, and identity development. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for researchers and practitioners serving Multiracial families.

Read or purchase the article here.
The 2020 census had big undercounts of Black people, Latinos and Native Americans

2022-03-11

The 2020 census had big undercounts of Black people, Latinos and Native Americans

National Public Radio
2022-03-10

Hansi Lo Wang

A Census Bureau worker waits to gather information from people during a 2020 census promotional event in New York City.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters

The 2020 census continued a longstanding trend of undercounting Black people, Latinos and Native Americans, while overcounting people who identified as white and not Latino, according to estimates from a report the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

Latinos were left out of the 2020 census at more than three times the rate of a decade earlier.

Among Native Americans living on reservations and Black people, the net undercount rates were numerically higher but not statistically different from the 2010 rates.

People who identified as white and not Latino were overcounted at almost double the rate in 2010. Asian Americans were also overcounted. The bureau said based on its estimates, it’s unclear how well the 2020 tally counted Pacific Islanders…

Read or listen to the story here.
Charles calls for a rejection of previous scholarly treatments of passing that foreground experiences of loss among those who pass and instead argues for a focus on the opportunities that performing race offered to certain mixed-race African American citizens.

2022-03-09

The past decade has seen a tremendous growth in scholarly inquiry around the subject of racial passing. The context of the current historical moment coupled with viral discussions of cultural appropriation and “blackfishing” brings a sense of urgency to understanding the long history of passing and its function in the U.S. context. Julia S. Charles’s That Middle World: Race, Performance, and the Politics of Passing offers a perspective on this phenomenon that places performance at the heart of the racial passing experience. Charles calls for a rejection of previous scholarly treatments of passing that foreground experiences of loss among those who pass and instead argues for a focus on the opportunities that performing race offered to certain mixed-race African American citizens. Charles presents a book of theory and philosophy on racial passing meant to inform the ways scholars of African American literature and media studies can make sense of mixed-race and passing characters throughout nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature.

Tyler Sperrazza, “That Middle World: Race, Performance, and the Politics of Passing by Julia S. Charles (review),” Journal of Southern History, Volume 88, Number 1, February 2022, 164. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/soh.2022.0019.
Clinical Implications for Multi-Racial Individuals

2022-03-09

Clinical Implications for Multi-Racial Individuals

The American Journal of Family Therapy
Volume 48, 2020 – Issue 3
pages 271-282
DOI: 10.1080/01926187.2019.1709581

Natasha Finney, School of Counseling
The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio

Eman Tadros, Assistant Professor
Governors State University, University Park, Illinois

Samantha Pfeiffer, School of Counseling
The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio

Delila Owens, Professor, School of Counseling
The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio

Multi-racial individuals experience distinctive struggles and challenges that can impact their mental health. However, despite the growing population and unique presenting issues there remains a scarcity of literature to effectively support them. In addition, there is a lack of research exploring the unique experience of the multiple heritage population. The article offers implications for effectively working with individuals of multi-racial decent as well as a call to action for MFTs to develop multicultural competencies for the profession.

Read or purchase the article here.
Artist Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi reveals—and defies—the white supremacist underpinnings of elite gymnastics

2022-03-09

Artist Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi reveals—and defies—the white supremacist underpinnings of elite gymnastics

Document Journal
2019-11-07

Miss Rosen

As Simone Biles becomes the most decorated athlete in sports, Nkosi tells Document about the implications of Black girls’ success in elite gymnastics, which has historically been used as a tool of oppression.

When Simone Biles made history at the 2019 World Championships by becoming the most decorated gymnast of any gender, she single-handedly redefined one of the world’s most elite sports. As a Black woman in a traditionally white space, she surpassed all expectations, becoming an icon in the process.

For Johannesburg-based multimedia artist Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, Biles’ success is a testament to Black power in the face of an establishment determined to undermine it. Earlier this summer Biles invented new skills and the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), the sport’s governing body, penalized her for the groundbreaking performance. The FIG reduced the degree of Biles’ signature ‘double double’ dismount (two twists, two flips) from the beam—out of concern, they claimed, about the safety of lesser gymnasts who might harm themselves while attempting it…

…Born in New York to a South African father in exile and a Greek-American mother, Nkosi’s family moved to Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1989 when she just was eight years old. “I get this rush of emotion when I think of the day we were watching Nelson Mandela being released from prison in 1990 on TV,” Nkosi says. “My parents were looking at each other like, ‘This is it, we are going to go.’…

Read the entire article here.

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